July 28, 2023
We toured the restored 1920’s bank downstairs from the Reagans’ apartment. The bank failed during the Great Depression. The bank’s paperwork, books, and furniture was carried into the basement and forgotten.
When the building was being renovated to be a museum, the bank’s paperwork, books, and furniture were discovered in excellent shape in the basement.
They put the bank back together and give tours of how a bank worked in the 1920’s. Since I worked at a bank for over 20 years, I found this tour to be particularly interesting.
After we went through the lobby, we were taken into the back, where bank employees would’ve worked.
We got a look at the bank vault. The docent even showed us a safe box that still had its contents in it from the 1920’s.
In the back of the building was a room with the movie memorabilia from Ronald Reagan.
We didn’t get to tour that room.
We then went outside to go upstairs to the apartment that the Reagans lived in.
You can see the post about the apartment here. After we toured the apartment, we walked around town.
Blackberry Homestead 
This was my favorite part of the tour! I love historic bank buildings and those records! I grew up going into a bank very similar, where deposits were made through an exchange window just like that and you went through a short door just like that to go in to talk with the bank president in his “office”!
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It was a great tour. The docent was wonderful and we got an excellent tour.
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As someone who probably knows, what’s the difference between “Exchange” and “Teller” functions?
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I believe the Exchange window would allow some to exchange paper notes into gold and silver. The Teller window would be for accepting checks and paying (cashing) them.
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Thank you! I’m only familiar with exchanging currency; I’ve not tried to exchange paper for gold,but I don’t think banks do that since going off the gold standard!
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You are right! Since we went off the golf standard, banks don’t exchange notes for metals.
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In modern times, exchange is generally used to mean exchanging currency.
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